1. Field of the Invention
An apparatus consistent with the present invention relates to a tape cartridge and, especially to a magnetic tape cartridge containing a tape-shaped recording medium. More specifically, an apparatus consistent with the present invention relates to a magnetic tape cartridge which makes it possible to sense the presence of an RFID tag within.
2. Description of the Related Art
Magnetic tape cartridges have been widely used as mass storage media. Such magnetic tape cartridges, however, have a structure that a single magnetic tape contains data, and their access time inevitably ends up being long. To overcome this disadvantage, a non-contact type of IC tag that functions as an automatic identifying means using radio waves or magnetic coupling has been produced, and a magnetic tape cartridge equipped with this IC tag has become popular. Hereinafter, an IC tag is referred to as “RFID (radio frequency identification) tag”. Such an RFID tag is a medium on/from which information about the location of the data on the magnetic tape, production management of the magnetic tape cartridge, etc. can be written or read, and allows the access time for the magnetic tape cartridge to be short.
Concretely, an RFID tag includes within an IC chip that stores management information about the data recorded on the magnetic tape, and an antenna or a coil. Further, the RFID tag can communicate with an RFID reader/writer by means of radio waves or magnetic coupling in a non-contact manner (see a reference numeral 9 in FIG. 1). Furthermore, when certain data needs to be read from a magnetic tape cartridge, the management information about this data can be read from the RFID tag, so that the location of the data can instantly be pinpointed. Consequently, it is possible to access a magnetic tape cartridge efficiently.
As for the procedures of reading data from the magnetic tape cartridge with an RFID tag, the RFID reader/writer is first activated, then refers to the management information recorded on the RFID tag, and the data is finally read from the magnetic tape, based on the information. In addition, when new data is written on the magnetic tape, the RFID reader/writer writes, on the RFID tag, the management information about the new data. Furthermore, an RFID reader/writer senses the presence of an RFID tag. Concretely, an RFID reader/writer sends a command to an RFID tag, and then waits for a response from the RFID tag. The RFID reader/writer determines whether the RFID tag is present, based on the presence or absence of the response.
An RFID tag has conventionally been integrated into a cartridge, but recently, for the purpose of facilitating the exchange of RFID tags, a magnetic tape cartridge from which an RFID tag can be detached was disclosed (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application No. 2003-297040). In this structure, an RFID tag is fixed to a block body separate from a cartridge, and this block body is inserted into an aperture in the cartridge. Moreover, a label type of RFID tag which can be affixed on the back of a cartridge was also proposed. This RFID tag can be attached/detached to or from a cartridge as appropriate.
However, in an RFID tag as in the examples above, problems may occur, such as the positional relationship between an RFID tag and an RFID reader/writer is not optimum, or the performances of them are quite different from each other. In these cases, the RFID reader/writer may fail to identify the RFID tag, or may spend a long time to search for the RFID tag. These disadvantages may also appear when the specifications between the RFID tag and the RFID reader/writer are mismatched.
An RFID tag of this type may be damaged when being attached/detached to or from the magnetic tape cartridge. In this case, the disadvantages above may also occur.
The present invention has been conceived, taking the disadvantages above into account. An object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic tape cartridge with an arrangement which makes it possible to sense the presence of an RFID tag, with or without an RFID reader/writer, thereby shortening the time to search for the RFID tag.
An additional object of the present invention is to provide a means for sensing, by working with an RFID reader/writer, the presence, condition, etc. of an RFID tag having various specifications.